Eleven year old, David Nickisson of Centurion, Pretoria was the winner of his category in a new short story competition, Skryf Net, which means Just Write.
2013 was the first year that the competition was run. It was initiated by Dr. Owen Msimango to get children from primary schools across South Africa interested in writing stories and reading.
There were two different age groups, 6-9 years and 10-13 years in both English and Afrikaans respectively.
In future the competition will include all eleven official languages.
David saw the competition advertised in the newspaper and decided to enter when he saw the prize, a book voucher to the value of R450 and a R150 voucher for the runner up.
David says he loves books: “I read any books that I can lay my hands on. My favourite author is Micheal Morpurgo. My favourite Micheal Morpurgo book is Running Wild. I also love Asterix, Tintin, Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. I like reading books on experiments and magic tricks as well.”
David’s favourite subjects are science and technology, history and zoology.
The inspiration for David’s winning entry came from a ship he had heard about, called the Sovereign which was one of the most feared ships in history. “Another part of the idea for the story came from a computer game that I play,” explained David.
THE FATE OF EXPLORER
by David Nickisson
In the late 1700s there was a ship named Explorer.
Explorer was a pirate ship that was very unlucky. She was almost always having to turn tail and flee. She had only ever sunk two ships in her ten year life span.
This time the crew decided to hoist the red pennant at the very next ship they saw. The red pennant meant a fight to the death, no quarter given and no prisoners taken.
However, they regretted it afterwards.
As they raised the red pennant they saw the ship lower its sails. Now the ship lay motionless on the calm sea. But the weather would not allow it for too long, for there was a storm brewing.
In the distance the crew of Explorer could see the other ship was also hoisting the red pennant.
As the Explorer drew nearer the crew realised that they should not have been so hasty in hoisting the red pennant, for the ship they had just challenged was the Buccaneer. She was the most feared ship that had ever sailed on the seven seas.
The two ships prepared for battle. The Explorer was 40 foot long and 40 foot high and had 8 cannons, 25 tons of cannonballs and 50 tons of black powder on board.
The Buccaneer was 120 foot long and 72 foot high and she carried 50 cannons, 75 tons of cannonballs, and 150 tons of black powder. She also carried 100 tons of gold.
The captain of the Explorer said, “Strike our mast down if we can beat the Buccaneer!”
While they prepared for battle the storm moved closer and closer until it was right overhead.
The words were hardly out of the captain’s mouth when a lightning bolt struck the main mast. The mast toppled into the water with its sails on fire.
The Explorer aligned itself with the Buccaneer. The battle began. BANG!!! The Buccaneer side-winded the Explorer with one of her cannons. Explorer returned fire and soon the battle was no longer a battle but a raging nightmare.
For a while it looked like Explorer was going to win. Explorer had a battering ram on board. Just as they were about to make contact, the Buccaneer’s crew decided they had had enough.
They aligned the flame cannon. BOOM!!! The flaming cannon ball broke into the hold of Explorer, penetrated a barrel of black powder, torching all the black powder in the hold.
The intense heat of the burning Explorer made all the gun powder in the Buccaneer’s hold blow up as well.
The Explorer’s deck folded like a book and the ship slipped smoothly into the sea, never to be seen again.
The Buccaneer made it to shore and got repaired and she was still the most feared ship that ever sailed the seven seas.
THE END